I’ve been looking at radio station Web sites this week for a few different reasons, one being that I’m building a talk radio site for a radio station (screenshot of progress on that site here).

And since I look at everything from a social media strategy perspective these days, I realized the great potential that these stations are missing out on.

The dilemma I think that a lot of them face is that since this is an industry that has been gobbled up by major networks, the majority of their content is syndicated, not local. But this is one of the few cases where local content isn’t exactly the essential ingredient to a great site or social media strategy.

The true key ingredient is simply a topic that people are passionate about; so long as your content relates to that topic, you’ve got hungry consumers just waiting to be served and waiting to become part of a local community of similar people.

Coming from the newspaper industry myself, this ingredient of a passionate topic is a godsend, which is why I think radio stations should really be capitalizing on the engagement they could be creating around this content. While newspapers scramble to make people want to care about local news, music stations could be dominating online.

Take a Clear Channel station as an example — they have plenty of syndicated news, music news, chart lists, blog posts from great DJs, photo galleries, music videos, acoustic performances, etc.

And while for a Clear Channel station in San Francisco or San Diego it’s not original content, it’s content that people in both San Francisco and San Diego who love music would love to consume.

But then why not argue that those people in San Diego, for example, couldn’t just go to Yahoo! Music and get all of the same content. While this is true, this is where I want music stations to start getting creative.

Using social networks like Facebook or Twitter, they can gather their local communities around that content, and in doing so, engage with them about that content and have them engage with each other as well.

I’ve seen this tried before with forums attached to radio station sites, and it usually fails horribly. What Facebook and Twitter have done is allow brands to bring their content in, build community around it, and most importantly, allow you to engage with your fanbase, ultimately humanizing the brand.

And it’s all being done in a space that these people are already comfortable with, are visiting more often than any other sites, and in a space where their own friends already are as well.

So while the content you’re sharing isn’t local, it’s enough to build community, locally, and achieving that means thousands of fans rather than hundreds, increased page views, increased participation in contests and giveaways, and more dedication and loyalty to the station overall.

After all, it’s easier to connect with a station that will actually acknowledge my existence than a station that feels like it’s being run out of L.A. when I live in San Diego or San Francisco.

And if these stations can then take it a step further and start producing original (preferably localized) content in addition to their syndicated content, they’ll suddenly have local advertisers paying to be part of the action (especially if by that point, the station’s reach has grown to thousands of fans).

This strategy doesn’t only apply to music stations, but really any form of publishing medium (newspapers, magazines, TV stations, etc.) that has a passionate niche audience.

Music stations are lucky because they have rather large audiences who are all very passionate about hearing their Top 10 hits, but as Gary Vaynerchuk has proven, getting a lot of people who love wine together equates to a lot of advertiser dollars.

Music stations, although they may not realize it, are in an incredibly good position by having such a wealth of content at their fingertips — the key will be gathering their local communities around it, engaging with them and becoming an integral part of their Facebook feeds that they look for every day.

If they pitched their fan pages to their listeners as a place to not only find out about the latest music news, but also the latest movie reviews, morning/evening traffic info, giveaways and deals, major news headlines and so much more, why would you ever have to subscribe to anything else?

The potential is there to become that integral feed in their lives, let’s see if they take advantage of and leverage what they already have.